The invention relates to a method for photoelectrically scanning an original picture to thereby record a duplicate image thereof wherein a TV camera or a solid-state image sensor is used to produce image signals of the picture, the signals being properly processed for recording a so-called "binary" image of characters or the like.
Generally, image signals of a character copy are digitized at first in order to be written into a memory and are then processed into digital recording signals. In case where the sizes of said characters or letters are small, the copy is usually scanned in such a manner as to give an enlarged image of suitable magnification. This will sometimes prevent the TV camera from catching the whole copy within its range of vision. Divisional photographing or image-sensing processes will therefore be required for magnifying the copy so that such divisional images can be composed on a cathode ray tube (CRT) display. Such a processing manner is however disadvantageous in that it needs a memory of large capacity as well as an intricate operation for composing of the divisional images.